Privacy policy

Who we are

Local Minute is a trading name of Kenzie George Pty Ltd, ABN 55 691 917 441 ("we", "us", "our"). We make short local news and what's-on videos for individual towns and publish them on social media platforms and at localminute.com.au (also reachable at localminute.news).

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). You can contact us about privacy through the chat on this website.

What we collect

When you contact us

If you contact us (for example with a story tip, a correction, a town request or a sponsorship enquiry, through the chat on this website or by replying to one of our emails) we collect your name, email address and anything you choose to include in your message.

Sponsors and advertisers

If your business sponsors a channel we collect the contact details of the people we deal with, billing details, and the logo, wording and links you supply for your sponsorship.

When you visit this website

Our hosting provider records standard technical information when you load a page, such as your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time. We use it to keep the site running and secure. We don't use it to identify you.

When you use the chat

The "Ask us" chat on this website is answered by an AI assistant (Claude, from Anthropic). What you type is sent to Anthropic to write the answer. We don't save the chat, unless you ask for a person to get back to you: then we save the chat and the email address you give with your support ticket, so we can read it and reply, and we keep the ticket and its emails while we need them to help you. To stop misuse we count how many messages come from each visitor, using a scrambled form of your IP address that we can't turn back into it, and delete those counts within two days. Please don't put sensitive details in the chat.

On social media

When you follow, like, comment on or message one of our channels, the platform (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube) shares some information with us under its own terms, such as your public profile name and your comment. We also receive aggregated viewing statistics that don't identify individuals. Each platform's own privacy policy governs what it collects from you.

People in our videos

Our videos are made with the help of AI from publicly available sources, such as council notices, government alerts, local news outlets, and venue and event listings. A video may name people who appear in those public sources, for example a council member, a performer or a sports result. We use only what is relevant to the local story and we list our sources in each video's caption.

We don't add private information that isn't in a public source. If you're named or shown in one of our videos and want it corrected or removed, tell us in the chat, with a link to the video. We'll review it promptly and, where appropriate, correct it or take it down from the platforms we control.

How we use personal information

to reply to you and act on your tip, correction or request;
to make, check and publish our videos;
to arrange, deliver, invoice and report on sponsorships;
to run, secure and improve our website and services; and
to meet our legal obligations.

We don't sell personal information. We'll only send you marketing emails if you've asked for them, and every marketing email will let you unsubscribe, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

We share personal information only as needed with:

service providers who help us run Local Minute, such as website and data hosting (Cloudflare), email, AI and voice services that help us write and voice videos (these mostly process public source material, not information about you), and the AI service that answers the website chat;
the social media platforms we publish to, when we post a video or reply to a comment;
our professional advisers, such as accountants and lawyers; and
anyone we're required or authorised by law to share it with.

Overseas disclosure

Some of our service providers and the social media platforms store or process information outside Australia, including in the United States and other countries where they operate. We take reasonable steps to make sure they handle it consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Cookies and analytics

This website doesn't use advertising cookies or third-party tracking. The only cookies are the ones it needs to work: one that remembers which country's site you picked (lm_country, kept for a year), and a sign-in cookie on the sponsor pages. It loads fonts from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address when your browser requests the font files. If we add analytics in future, we'll update this policy first.

Security and how long we keep it

We store information with reputable providers, limit access to the people who need it, and use encryption where it matters, such as for platform credentials. We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes above or as the law requires (for example, tax records), then delete or de-identify it.

Access and correction

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it, through the chat on this website (ask for a person and we'll reply by email). We'll respond within 30 days. We may need to confirm your identity first.

Complaints

If you have a concern about how we've handled your personal information, tell us first through the chat on this website and we'll try to resolve it within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always on this page, with the date it was last updated.